About us
A family, caring for families.
How it began
Two brothers, a rugby season,
and a house in Strand.
- 1 July 2017
The name is both of ours
SamWill was registered by two brothers who were, at the time, both playing professional rugby — Ramone Samuels and Damian Willemse. The name is simply the two of them put together.
- 17 July 2017
Open, sixteen days later
There was no premises to speak of. The business ran out of a small office in Strand — the one we still keep today as our satellite office — and out of our mother's house.
- 2020
Our own mortuary
We stopped sending families' loved ones elsewhere and took that care into our own hands. It is the decision the whole business turns on, and we have not looked back since.
- Today
Led by Ramone and Michelle
Ramone Samuels as Managing Director, alongside his wife Michelle Samuels. Head office and mortuary at 18 Montreal Drive, the satellite office still in Strand, and a fleet of our own.
Ramone has always spoken about SamWill the way you would speak about a child. In the early years it was fed before anybody else was, and it kept the house awake at night. The years since have asked a great deal of this family, and been given it.
What grew out of that is a funeral service that does the whole of the work itself — our own mortuary, our own vehicles, our own people — rather than handing a family a payment and leaving them to arrange the rest in the week they are least able to.
Who we are
We understand, because we have sat where you are sitting.
SamWill Funeral Service is led by Ramone Samuels, Managing Director, and his wife Michelle Samuels, from our head office and mortuary at 18 Montreal Drive in Airport Industria, with a satellite office in Strand.
We built this the way round we did for a reason. Our own mortuary, so your loved one never leaves our care. Our own vehicles, so the day runs to your family’s time rather than somebody else’s. Our own people, so the voice on the telephone at three in the morning belongs to the person who will be there on the day.
It is a small thing to say and a large thing to do. It is why the business exists.
“Every person who comes into our care is somebody’s mother, somebody’s brother, somebody’s child. We look after them the way we would want our own to be looked after.”
Dignity
Quiet, careful attention at every stage — most of it in moments your family will never see, which is precisely why it matters.
Presence
We answer the telephone ourselves, and we stand with you on the day. Not a stranger sent in our place.
Honesty
One written quote, explained gently and fully, with nothing added afterwards.
Ours to hand on
Everyone who owns SamWill is the first in their family to do so.
Nobody handed this to us. There was no practice to inherit, no name already above a door. Every owner of this business is the first generation of their family to hold one, and everything here was built from a registration certificate and a house in Strand.
The second generation is already named. Ramone Edwin Samuels II will take this on in his turn, and what he will be given is not a business so much as an obligation — to be there for families at the hour they cannot help themselves.
We have been able to do that since 2017. We would like SamWill to still be answering the telephone in a hundred years.
Our promise to you
The code we are held to.
As a full member of the National Funeral Directors Association, we pledge to honour its code of conduct. These are not our words — they are the Association’s, and we are answerable to them.
- To act in the interest of all who need our services
- To respect all beliefs and to treat all personal information as strictly confidential
- To treat every deceased with care and respect and to take all due precautions with regard to health regulations
- To charge reasonable rates for services rendered and not to exploit bereaved families
- To be responsible in advertising and to refrain from soliciting and corruption
- To maintain high ethical standards in all relationships with the public as well as other funeral directors
- To be loyal to our vocation and to the National Funeral Directors' Association of Southern Africa
The fourth of those matters more than most: to charge reasonable rates and not to exploit bereaved families. If you ever feel we have fallen short of it, please tell us — and if we cannot put it right, the Association is there to hear it.
Come and see where we would care for them.
You are welcome at Montreal Drive. Very few families think to ask, and we would rather you did.